


Wishes in the Dark

by singingwithoutwords



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Prompt Fill, ambiguously historical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 03:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4691075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingwithoutwords/pseuds/singingwithoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce's lover left him under a dying sun at the edge of the forest.  Bruce found him again under a full moon at the edge of a masquerade.</p><p>(aka: <i>the</i> most ambiguous and inaccurate historical Hulkeye fantasy AU you will ever read)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wishes in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Title because I was listening to a [Radioactive/In the Dark mashup](https://soundcloud.com/madisoncardoza/radioactive-in-the-dark) while writing this and I suck at titles.

Bruce had never been to Stark Manor before.  He was only a schoolteacher, nobody important enough to be invited, and he had never been able to brave the crowds that swarmed the place when it was open to everyone.  He had intended to pass the day of Stark’s heir’s engagement in quiet solitude back at his cramped rooms at the village school, in fact, and for the first hour or so of the masquerade, he had no earthly idea why he’d bothered to attend at all.

At first he only glimped feathers, deep violet and black, out of the corner of his eye.  They vanished behind a group of gowns before he could get a proper look at them, and he almost dismissed them as wishful thinking.  There was no reason for him to be here, even less so than Bruce himself.

But he saw the feathers again, a sweeping train of them slipping behind a stone pillar.  And again, by the grand staircase.  Across the ballroom, near the dais draped with red and gold silk where Lord Stark and his son held their miniature court.

Bruce was a man of learning.  He knew there was no reason to believe that this fall of feathers were his, to assume that this person and the man he’d met every twilight for months in the woods beyond the village were the same.  But he  _knew_.  He knew, in that deep part of himself where logic and reason held no sway, that they were the same.  It had been weeks since he’d seen a heavy wool cloak in just those colors, hiding just that confident swaying gait, but he knew.

He didn’t realize he’d left his safe corner until he was far from it, mixed in with the highborn and the villagers, all anonymous behind their masks but recognizable for the quality of them, however much they might pretend to be equals here.

He didn’t see the elusive feathers, but he heard a rich, full laugh that could raise him from the dead as he stepped around a pair in quiet conversation, him with a simple mask of cloth and undyed goose feathers and her in a mask of silk and precious gold.  The laugh was gone too quickly for him to locate or follow, but he would not be put off by so small an obstacle.

Bruce edged along to the room, as far from the swirl of dancers as possible, gaze darting to any hint of black or purple he saw, but none of them were what he searched for.

A swell of black to his right, and he turned toward it  only to be disappointed yet again.  He would have moved on, but she moved to block his path.

“Dance with me,” she said, taking his hands and tugging him toward the open floor.

She was a skilled dancer, light and quick on her feet, her red gown like an ocean of blood as she led him more than he led her, the black sweep of her bustle and veils like dark wings.

The musicians concluded their song and began another, slower.  Bruce was more than ready to go, but she pulled him close once more and slipped her arms around his waist, leaning her head against the rough green cotton of his shirt.

“My Lady…” Bruce protested softly, for anyone dressed as finely as she had to be of noble birth, but she only stood on her toes and kissed his cheek.

“You’ll frighten him,” she said, directing him in their new dance.  “Our kind don’t respond well to hunting.”

“I’m not-” Bruce protested.

“There are different kinds of hunting,” she said.  Behind the silver-and-red of her mask, her green eyes hardened and went dark with pain and memory.  “The differences are not so great from the view of the prey.”

“I only want to see him again,” Bruce confessed.  “For a proper goodbye, if that’s all he’ll give me.”

“You are kind,” she said.  “That doesn’t mean you can’t be cruel as well, and he is precious to me.”

“I would sooner end my own life than hurt him.”

She smiled a sad little smile and stepped back, away from him.  “That,” she said, “Is an entirely different frightening altogether.  We are not like you, who can give and take and love and lose so easily.  We don’t have your passing fancies, your quick-burning passions.  If in this moment you truly love him, and if you think for even a moment that will change, be kind: forget him.”

Then she was gone, not even a stir in the crowd.  All that was left was a single bold violet feather tucked into the pocket of Bruce’s vest to prove she had ever been there at all.

Bruce left behind the dancers, leaning against a pillar to catch his breath.  A passing servant offered him a goblet of wine, and he took it gratefully.  He normally wouldn’t indulge, but he needed  _something_  to steady his nerves.

Once the goblet was drained, another servant appeared to reclaim it and vanished again, and Bruce pushed away from the pillar to continue his search.  He know knew, not just through intuition but also through solid logic, that he was here, and Bruce was going to find him.

He couldn’t say how long he spent chasing glimpses of black and purple from one end of the massive hall to the other, until finally he followed one out onto a balcony and found him.

He wore a stiff black mask adorned with purple feathers and ribbon, the edges studded with tiny purple gems that glittered in the moonlight.  His high-collared black vest fit like a second skin, and he wore no shirt under it, leaving his arms bare from shoulder to the heavy gold bracelets on both his wrists.  More gold adorned his fingers and hung in a glittering loop of chains around his neck and down his chest.  The feathers that had taunted Bruce all evening were a bustle that brushed the ground at the heels of his boots as he turned and leaned against the rail, silver-blue eyes bright as he smiled at Bruce.

“Brought me to bay at last?” he asked, and if Bruce had not met his companion, he might have missed the faint tightness, the undercurrent of fear.

“Have I made you feel so hunted, Clint?” Bruce responded with a sad smile.  “Is that why you disappeared?”

Clint sighed, turning his head to stare out over the village, dark and silent at the moment, and the heavy forest beyond.  “I haven’t been entirely truthful with you, lover,” he confessed.

“I know.”  Bruce chanced a step closer, but Clint tensed, and so he retreated again.  “Or, I had guessed.”

“Yet you said nothing.”  Clint swept his gaze back to Bruce, smiling once more.  “How very like you.”

“I had hoped you would tell me when you were ready for me to know.  I was content to wait.”

“You always were.  Too content for your own good, if you ask me.  Did you guess my secret, or only that I had one?”

“Does it matter?”  This time, when Bruce stepped forward, Clint remained relaxed.  “Your secrets are your secrets, and my guesses are only guesses.  I would wait forever, if you let me.”

“What in all the worlds did I do to deserve you, Bruce?” Clint asked, stepping away from the rail.  The heels of his boots rang sharply against the balcony stone, like silver bells.  “Would that I could give you forever- I would in a heartbeat.”

“I would take it just as quickly,” Bruce promised him.  “And never regret it.”

“Your kind aren’t meant for forever,” Clint warned.  “It wears on you, and too many years sour you towards us.”

“Never,” Bruce disagreed.  “Nothing could sour me to you, whatever the differences in our kinds.”

“Please don’t tempt me, Bruce,” Clint begged, closing his eyes.  “I beg you don’t, or I will give you what you ask, and you’ll come to hate me.”

“Never,” Bruce repeated, more firmly, taking Clint’s bejeweled hands in his own.  “Never.  I swear it.”

“You would be missed.”

“Let them miss me.  I would not be me without you in my life, anyway.”

Clint groaned softly, darting forward.  It felt as though lifetimes had passed since last they kissed, behind the schoolhouse at sunset fortnights ago, but Clint’s lips had not lost their familiarity in that time, and Bruce gladly returned his kiss with interest.

“You would never be able to return.”

“I know.”

“You’ll tire of me in time.”

“I won’t.”

“You will.”

“I love you.”

Clint laughed and pulled off his mask, tossing it aside, sending Bruce’s mask to join it.  “And I, you,” he promised, kissing Bruce again.

* * *

Some time later, when only the most determined of revelers remained, a dainty woman with red hair and deep green eyes stepped onto the balcony.  She studied the two masks, side by side on the bare stone, and sighed.  If Clint had finally allowed himself a bride, she supposed, she had best get home and begin preparations for the wedding.  She had known Clint for a thousand years and more, and he was bound to be… distracted.

The villagers, accustomed as they were to the peculiarities of the forest near their home, simply agreed their schoolteacher another soul lost to the Fae and moved on with their lives.  Their schoolteacher did likewise, and he never did regret his choice.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt over on tumblr. I'm pretty much begging for prompts right now, so if you want to glance at [the prompt list](http://singingwithoutwords.tumblr.com/post/127518098398) and my [ships list](http://singingwithoutwords.tumblr.com/ships) and toss a prompt or two my way, that would be awesome.


End file.
